A variety of educational devices have been employed to teach very young children the fundamentals of arithmetic. Such devices include the use of flash cards having different symbols, patterns, numbers or designs thereon representing one or more digits from 0 to 9; the use of blocks of varying length and number indiced thereon corresponding to the relative length of the block compared with a unit length, as well as other means and divices.
It has been shown in recent years that very young children e.g., ages 6 mos. or more often learn most easily by pattern recognition. While counting is often a very difficult task for many young children, and especially for those with short attention spans, most children can easily and quickly recognize a pattern. It would therefore, be desirable to employ a teaching device in which a child's interest can be sustained e.g., by colors, designs, movement, indicia or the like and which utilizes and aids in the formation of distinct patterns to represent the digits from 0 to 9.